Sarah Weaknesses and Potential Work Arounds

Here are how I see the troublesome match-ups (let's assume 2 excellent players who know how to punish and everything )

Sarah vs. Taka: Obviously his weight and ability to eat many of her knockdown moves. Sure we have + but you don't want to put yourself into Nitaku against Taka unless it is a calculated risk, since his damage is really good. is just too risky in my opinion... -15 in this game against someone who knows how to punish is an easy 80 life lost (and probably more since Sarah is light), which is superior to the damage you'll probably get off of a successful . FL is pretty much reduced to FL for any combo damage, which is very easy to avoid if you have a brain. The only benefit we do have is that many combos lead into + frames so you can at least keep a mix-up going for a while and get damage off of it.

Sarah vs. Brad (or Jacky): Brad Damage is just a freaking nightmare to deal with. Sarah's risky compared to other characters for her move profile (So...Many...Highs...) and once Brad get's one of his punishment combo starters on you, you just watch your health bar vanish and have to work 2x as hard to keep up. It's really just about the damage to be honest, but that is huge in the FS system. Same with Jacky except you have the added headache of Jacky's spam-tastic nature to boot.

Sarah vs. Vany (or Aoi and to a lessor extent Goh and Lion): Their ability to shut down 95% of your moves from disadvantage with 1 or 2 moves puts you in a terrible situation. Without fast double leg or hand moves, Sarah fails really hard to sabaki tactics and even worse can only really keep up damage-wise with Aoi on this list. However, Aoi has such good pressure tools that neutralize a lot of Sarah's main moves to compensate for the damage being equal that makes her one super tough match-up. I think I counted that Sarah has like 7 or 8 moves that beat Vany DS and 5 of those are lows. One is the standard full circ and the other is which is specifically for rising attack crush.

When I look at Sarah's advantages (Best Low Crush Game, FL Frame Advantage on Block, Great Chain of Highs) they just don't fit in as well into the FS system as the other character's strengths. Low crush stuff only matters if you guess correctly and isn't something you can build an offense around. It's great at thwarting excessive 2P, but most competent players use 2P intelligently, so it's not like your going to make a living off of it. FL Frame Advantage is great and all, but without a quick throw, it's not as easy to open up an opponent although I'm trying to see if there are ways around it, but they still don't hold a candle to what the 40 dmg catch throw would do for FL. If they just gave her the weak FL throw, then I think a lot of match-ups would be significantly different and in her favor since FL becomes a serious threat at that point. Her highs are flat out amazing, but at the expense of having a weak mid and low game, which is a problem because so many characters have ways of beating highs (including Sarah) but when it is your strength, it just means everyone has a tool for beating your strength.

 

vs. Taka is pretty butt for her. Losing 2p+kk serpent cannon overall sucks. Though, her 6KK is pretty amazing and is a good tool against Taka. Like a true Bryant, Sarah is a very strong poke character, and she can space Taka out fairly well. Good confirms/delays on moves like P4K, 3PP, 3PK , 6PP, and the gdlk 6KK, hitting him at max range with 2K+G and punishing whiffs with 4K+G > P > 3KK make the matchup feel better.

Against Goh, I certainly wish it were easier to use 44p to punish his -10 moves. I only can do it with ~30% consistency. It isn't a gamebreaker of any sort, and its generally better to try other stuff out to avoid getting sabakied/reversed etc. but denying the whole mixup would be interesting.

Aoi is a wild card to fight, just like goh. Sometimes when you get nikatu, against the two, just shoot 2k+g or 3k+g. if 2k+g CH's you get a combo. if the 3k+g hits you'll get a good oki situation.

vs. Jacky, its important to have serpent cannon locked and loaded to punish any whiffed highs in his strings, or as punishment against strings like 6ppp, 6pp2k and 1p+kpp.

 

Don't forget the unsabakiable 9K.

 

Just a side note:

Am I the only Sarah player that gets pleasure out of landing her FL P2KKK on Taka players? I know it doesn't knock the fat bastard down, but it still leaves her at +4 I think, so if they aren't expecting it, you can land it about 2 or 3 times in a row.

They eventually smash me for my arrogance, but it puts a smile on my face

 

I like doing it too Brodi! Only issue is that it's not always consistent online for me, which leads to Taka snapping Sarah like a Kit-Kat Bar and eating her tasty chocolate wafer style

 

Best Sarah player in the world gets 80% of Taka's bar, makes one mistake and loses. Her launchers don't work, she gets less damage on everything, she doesn't have the guaranteed stuff other characters do, Shou was right. There isn't a worse match up in VF because nobody else has their offense rendered as ineffective as Sarah does vs Taka. You should look at what other characters get vs Taka, then go back and look at Sarah, then get back to me.

There is no truly effective way to get around the fact they nerfed her tools to the point of ineffectiveness vs Taka. Lopsided SF4 style match up, hopefully they correct issues like this in the next VF.

Sarah vs Aoi isn't nearly as bad, you are just no good at that match up (or you use predictable attacks ). Sarah gets large damage on Aoi and has a working tool set, Aoi destroys any flow charty players, that can't get around her sabaki's and defensive options. Sarah's launchers and high damaging options all work vs Aoi, she even has some higher damaging option vs Aoi because of her weight status.. Sure if you go into FL and use a move they know is coming you're gonna get kick sabaki'd, punch sabaki'd, ying yanged, or reversed. That's punishment for being a predictable player, vs Taka you can play right and still lose since you're tools aren't effective, and he gets massive damage, where as Sarah gets next to no damage on him.

Sarah vs Vane is an ok match, again you can't be flow charty and have to play against Vanessa's defensive tools (if Vane is in D stance). After 50 or so matches in a row with Cheffy, i'm comfortable with the Sarah vs Vane match up. That and since i've gotten better with Vane myself, I know what will and wont work from FL, or standard, non stance attacks. Now Vane is certainly the better character, with higher damage and superior tools, but again all of Sarah's tools work on her, so it's much more favorable then Taka. Goh has good Sabaki's and massive damage, so if they know you're gonna throw a single limbed attack and sabaki it, you eat big damage all day.

 

Baz, do you think you could do a little write-up on some of the key moves you find useful in the Aoi & Vany matchups? I think that would help a lot of us!

 

Sure.

 

Why is that? Some think he's very random and doesn't have a good foundation, but he's fought some tough opponents such as Mukki Akira and beat them.

 

Do you have any examples of good Sarah players?

 

Sarah's Sp.High's are as follows:


+
FL / +

It's sad, because if they just made more of her common highs Special, it would solve a lot of problems since people wouldn't be able to kill her with tech crouch moves. All of her special highs are way too specific to really be useful often and are generally in chains that you can't use frequently.

 

I thought I would share something that I stumbled across while in the dojo and hopefully it can be something other Sarah's can use

Personally, I hate FL + because it is so damn slow (You can block it on reaction online, which is unheard of for lows) BUT I did notice that it has some benefits

1) It's -16 on block so most people aren't going to be able full damage punish you since you will be crouched (albeit you will still get rocked just not dead in one combo rocked).
2) It is a full circular low, meaning it does catch evade both ways and does get most people because everyone wants to avoid the damaging mids and such.
3) It is technically a tech crouch move so it will go under any high abares, which is kind of sweet
4) Knockdown on any type of hit

Not bad, not great but sprinkled in, can help open up people.

However, if you add 2 follow-ups to it, it becomes a really interesting tool

1) +, FL will pick up most opponents off the ground and let you get a bit more damage (about 50 all in which is pretty good) assuming they don't tech. If they are lighter, you may be able to get after you scrape them up which will put them head first face up on the ground against you and you can go for a to add more damage if they don't tech again.

2) + will work as a perfectly timed meaty if done immediately and if your opponent techs to the side (which is what most people do) and only put you at -5 if they block and +3 if you get a hit (2 hits guaranteed).

2.5) One bit of sneaky tech I found was that if you do +~->/ + on block by your opponent you'll be guaranteed to side step nearly all abare attempts someone may attempt to get out of the FL cancel mix-up at the end of the string and get a nice head crumble combo on them. I guess it puts you at a near perfect disadvantage for the move to work.

Edit made since I forgot to mention that it was on block that you should do 2.5.

baz is correct that mashy strings will beat / +, but most mashy fast strings don't start with lows so you can just then let the mids and highs rip at that point and get good damage.

Also, I wasn't referring to FL + on a frame advantage level since you should have + frames if you go into FL, I was referring to FL + on a pure amount of frames to execute level.

 

FL8P+K will lose to mashing every time, since FS has linear move tracking for n00bz. A simple mashed out PPP string will beat FL2_8P+K every time, so be careful on which opponents you try using that move on. Also that string leaves her at positive on the last hit that connects before the cancel into FL. So the move doesn't really work the way you're saying after a cancel, because if your opponent reacts quickly, or within any reasonable time frame, you'll get hit with whatever they use (unless it's a super slow 27+ frame move or something).

Also her FL 2K+G full circ low sweep isn't as slow as you're making it out to be. It is the same 26 frames as her normal stance sweep (edit: it's 26 at distance and 24 frames close up). Plus since most all FL entries are + on block, or hit, it ends up being a faster option than her other sweep. You should be going into FL at +4 or more in most instances i'd assume, so it's typically a 22 (or less) frame low full circ, that knocks down on hit, which isn't terrible by any means. Her high circ in FL is faster than 26 frames I believe, so there is that option as well. The FL sweep is a good tool, you just need to work on keeping your pressure/mixups up tempo, and conditioning your opponents. Maybe try using OM on knocked down opponents to gain positioning, and using that pressure to Sarah's advantage, instead of jumping back so often, and putting her at a long range situation (where Sarah is at her weakest) for attempted whiff punishment.

 

Hey I'm trying! Some habits die hard...especially when you don't get to play enough because school is kicking your butt . Hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of things soon enough.

 

I'd like to share something with a few of you that might not have known this, but Sarah actually has a side turned game

Bare with me here as this was news to me after screwing around in dojo for a bit, so for the few of you that haven't realized this yet keep reading.

Sarah has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to moves that force your opponent into a side-turned position: a whole 2 freakin' moves...

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- One of her rare full circular moves. It's high and 21 frames. However on both NH and CH it forces side-turned position. She has some options stemming from this one move.

- Finish the canned combo with - on normal hit you'll end up at +4 in FL, on CH you'll be at +10. Add 3 frames for side-turned and you have a +7 or +13 advantage while standing in FL to your opponent's side. On CH her combo is free for 80 damage.

- Do not finish the canned combo - on CH is +9. Add 3 frames for side-turned and you're at +12 advantage. Now all of her string combos and setups are free. for easy damage. Or to open up her other options such as the various endings or move into her FS/BS game.
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FS - Half circular high at a respectable 16 frames. Opponents will have to evade to her front to escape. On normal hit you are at +7 and on CH a crazy +12. That gives you a +10 and +15 situation to play with. The only problem here is finding a safe way to go into FS. I will hopefully cover that later when I have more free time.

- On +10 all you can really do is throw. Unless you're feeling confident and want to go into some BT shenanigans. If you do go into BT, remember your opponent will still be side-turned.

- On +15, so many options...throw (10f), strings (12f), (14f), various strings (14f) which, depending on which one you use, can lead into FL play or FS/BS play.
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I will probably expand on the FS/BS stuff and other setups when I have the time to go further into it.. Hopefully this is useful information to someone. I added this knowledge to my arsenal and have had great success with it recently both online and offline.

Good luck.

 

as far as getting into FS is concerned, the only "safe" entries on block seem to be from kp6 and 6kp6, safe in this context meaning that FS p beats a 14 frame kick. you can BS sabaki punches from ppp6, 6p+kp6 and 6pp6, but FS p won't beat shit. irritatingly, this is also true from 6pp6 on hit, even though the frames suggest otherwise; there's something special about the kp6 and 6kp6 cancels.

you actually can't fs from anything else worth a damn it looks like. i need to test at more advantages, but a p(g) on hit doesn't let you FS and transition to BS fast enough to sabaki or interrupt with p. i do wonder if this works at anything like +6 or better, though; it might be an interesting shenanigan to FS naked on block and see if you can get BS counterhits or p+k/2kk stuff when the opponent goes "what the fuck"? this assumes they don't just 2p that shit of course.

far as using fs is concerned, seems like you just got to throw it out there sometimes. quick FS - BS switches can be confusing at range. even on the best nh entry from kp6 or 6kp6 the best you can hope for from the frames is FS p, though i would be interested to see if BS gets you out of 2p at all. it might be better or worse than this in practice since the cancels are weird. Will test that out later.